Seminar Talk at Empathetic Computing Lab
I had an invited seminar talk at Empathetic Computing Lab, University of South Australia. Thank you Prof. Mark Billinghurst and Dr. Alaeddin Nassani for the invitation!
Title
Communicating Embodied Experiences among People using Wearable Devices
Abstract
While today’s tools allow us to communicate effectively with others via video and text, they leave out other critical communication channels, such as non-verbal cues and body language. These cues are important not only for face-to-face communication but even when communicating forces (muscle tension, movement, etc), feelings, and emotions, which are hard to share by using existing symbolic and graphical communication tools.
This brings up my research question: how can we communicate our embodied experience among people? To tackle this challenge, we have been exploring the larger concept of changing our bodies into that of another person using wearable devices.
In this talk, we introduce several concepts of sharing embodied experiences using wearable devices between users, such as between a physician and a patient, including people with neuromuscular diseases and even children, by means of virtual reality systems, exoskeletons, and electrical muscle stimulation. Lastly, we introduce how we can extend this concept to change our perception and cognition, such as preserving the sense of agency when voluntary and involuntary(machine) action is combined, and discuss its further possibilities and challenges for changing our perspectives toward different people.
Link to the page
